Missions
by Ytak
Summary: [Formerly titled "Angela] A series of humorus one-shots that happen to be missions that the Elric brothers have gone on as a part of their quest for the Philosopher's Stone. No spoilers.
1. Angela

**Angela**

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Spoilers: None

Pairings: None

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A_lphonse shifted slightly from foot to foot, his armor body creaking slightly. Leveled at him was the cool, analytical gaze of Colonel Mustang. Long moments of silence past between the two before the colonel finally spoke Alphonse._

_ Raising an eyebrow he asked, "May I ask why Fullmetal has delivered his written report of the latest mission and why isn't he here to deliver the verbal report?"_

_ Looking as uncomfortable as a suit of armor can, Alphonse cleared his throat and fidgeted a moment before starting. "Uh…well…you see, Colonel…he's out at his favorite restaurant interrogating the waiters and chefs."_

_ Mustang pulled his eyebrows together with a snap, "Why?"_

_ Taking a breath (or as much as a suit of armor can) Alphonse launched off into the tale of the latest mission. "Well, Colonel, it all started when we were on the mission to Dyer's…"_

The train clacked and swayed as it sped along the track to the Dyer Station. Edward and Alphonse stared out the window of the train, watching the hills roll by. But it was not the hills they were looking at, it was all the cows in the hilly pastures they were starting a with varying expressions.

"Damn…only the colonel would find it funny to send me on a mission into the middle of milk country," grumbled Edward.

"It's your own fault that you don't like milk, niisan," Alphonse gently chided.

Sitting back on the wooden bench with a surprising loud thump for a person of his size, Edward snatched a slightly crumpled file out of his small travel bag and flipped it open with practiced distain.

He began to read details of the assignment aloud, "Sudden disappearance of refined gold bars…Theft highly suspected…Investigate and report back."

Edward snapped the file closed and threw it onto the bench facing them. He slouched down and propped his feet up on the other seat. He grinned sardonically up at Alphonse, "Looks like we're errand boys again. What do you want to bet that there's something more going on there?"

Alphonse shifted in his seat, "We do seem to get a lot of missions that aren't accurately reported."

Edward and Alphonse shifted slightly in their seats as the train began to apply its brakes. A conductor walked down each car telling the passengers that the next stop was Dyer Station.

The Elric Brothers sat in silence for the remaining portion of the trip, watching the vista of the rolling pastureland slow down and come to a halt. Disembarking from the train, they went to the stationmaster to start their inquiries and to locate a decent hotel in town. A short while later, they were walking along the wooden planked sidewalks on both sides of the packed dirt road in the direction of an inn. Both the brothers noticed that the town seemed to be running down. If the mine was truly out of gold, this town would disappear.

As they were passing a police officer, the Elric Brother's heard 'gold…hidden' from one of the many narrow alleys.

Edward motioned for Alphonse to get the officer while he went toward the source of the voices.

"Excuse me, officer," Alphonse said politely.

"Yeah?" the aged officer replied.

"My niisan and I heard something suspicious in that alley over there. We heard something like 'hidden gold'."

The officer quickly trotted over to the corner where Edward was listening to the men speak.

The three other them heard, "Okay, it's settled then. We'll meet at the old mine tonight and move the gold out."

Out trotted three men, seeing the police officer they decided to bolt but did not get far as suddenly the ground they were standing on turned liquid and solidified once they were down to their hips in it.

The officer looked at Edward, who was standing up, with surprise and asked, "Yer an alchmist?"

Edward pulled out his silver pocket watch and showed the officer, "I'm a state alchemist. I was actually here to investigate the sudden disappearance of the gold from the mine." He grinned predatorily at the thieves, "but my job was easy this time."

Other officers were now arriving, having heard the aged officer blow his whistle when the men had tried to bolt.

The aged officer asked, as he was handcuffing the thieves, "What do they call you?"

"I'm the Fullmetal Alchemist." Hearing this statement, one of the three men suddenly began to scream like a little girl, "Don't turn me into dirt, sah! I'll tell ya eve'thing!"

Edward looked at Alphonse and shrugged his shoulders giving an 'I don't know what's wrong with him look.'

After releasing the men to the custody of the officers, Edward and Alphonse walked onto the inn. After getting a room and dropping off their bags, they headed to the dining room.

Once they seated themselves, a waitress came up to the brothers, "What's ya like to eat t'night, sahs?"

The waitress took the order of a steak (medium), biscuits and two glasses of iced tea (while giving Al a funny look for not ordering any food and telling Edward a growing boy like him should have milk instead of tea) and headed off to the kitchen.

"Well!" said Edward.

"'Well' what, niisan?" asked a puzzled Alphonse.

"That had to be the shortest mission ever! Just long enough for us to miss the last train back to Central but short enough that we can leave on the first train in the morning. We hardly had to do anything!" he said grinning.

A few minutes later, the waitress came back out with their order. As soon as she placed the steak in front of Edward he dug in. She smiled at him, noticing that he was really enjoying the steak.

"How does Angela taste, sah?" she asked.

"Angela?" the brothers asked looking at each other, both feeling lost.

"T'was the cow's name. Last night's cow was Got Milk? and Ornery Butt. The cows are raised and slaughtered by the inn o'ner 'imself," she said proudly.

Edward turned slightly green, forced himself to swallow the large piece of meat in his mouth, and mumbled, "Fine."

"Good! Have a g'evening then," the waitress left and went to serve the other customers.

Edward looked down at his steak. He had already eaten three-quarters of it. He carefully put down his fork on the plate and pushed it away from himself. Looking at Alphonse, he said, "I don't think I like to know the name of the name of the animal I'm eating."

Not feeling hungry anymore, the brothers paid for the food, bring the biscuits up to there room. The next day they took the first train out of town back to Central.

_"Right now, niisan is making sure that none of the people know the name of the animals they get," Alphonse said, finishing his narrative._

_ Mustang grunted and said, as if he did not believe the story he had just heard, "Really now…"_

_ Alphonse looked at Colonel Mustang and said with the most innocent look on his face, "That's what happened, Colonel, and that's no bull."_

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Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist does not belong to me. Obviously, the characters and plot are used without permission.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Leave a review!

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Omake:

Edward looks at the author with a menacing glare and snarls, "' Sitting back on the wooden bench with a surprising loud thump for a person of his size'? Are you calling me fat?"

The author looks at Edward with surprise, "No, I was just describing the scene with descriptive words." She waves an arm up and down, as if measuring Edward's height, "I was only pointing out that you made a loud thump for someone of your…stature."

Yelling, Edward said, "So, you're calling me small and dense like a lead brick?!" He jumps and begins chasing the author yelling obscenities.

Two steps ahead of Edward ("You're calling me slow, too?!") she turns back and waves, "See you next fic!"


	2. The Edward in Winter

**The Edward in Winter**

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No spoilers.

I hope that this will be the second story in a series of humorous missions for our beloved, small of stature, alchemist. (Edward yelling at the top of the lungs: STOP CALLING ME SHORT!)

Kudos to you if you can figure out where I mutilated the title from. :-)

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"What are we doing here again, Al?" Edward shivered under his heavy coat.

"The colonel heard rumors that there was a red stone involved in alchemy," said Al soothingly.

Edward muttered under his breath, "I'm sure he just wanted to see me bundled up so he can call me short _and_ fat."

Alphonse looked at his brother, who wore so much clothing that he looked more like ball than a bundled up teenager. Alphonse said chidingly, "Still, brother, that was no reason to try to alchemize the train that Hughes boarded when you realized he took your picture."

Edward snarled, "I don't care if he has a wife and a kid. I'm going to get him and his little colonel, too."

Though he was a suit of armor, Alphonse sighed. With much cajoling and pleading, he finally got Edward to stop scowling in the direction that the train to Central went with a very amused Hughes on board. Alphonse guided Edward off of the platform and into the snow covered town, looking and listening for hints about alchemy and a red stone.

Alphonse walked in front of Edward and plowed through the snow. Otherwise, because Edward was not big enough, he would not be able to walk through the snow. A sweat drop appeared on Alphonse's head as he imagined Edward's reaction if he told his brother why he insisted on going first.

The day's searches proved fruitless and temperamental in the case of Edward, who had been receiving odd looks all day. Alphonse arranged for a room at an inn because the innkeeper would not go near Edward because he looked like a ball with a scowling face sewn into it.

The night passed uneventfully and the morning dawned with Edward still being crabby. When he went into the commons area to eat breakfast, he received a lot of odd looks.

The innkeeper walked over, "When did you get here, kid?" Edward twitched and gave the innkeeper a scowl. "Uh…never mind. I remember you now," the innkeeper said, backing away slowly and darting into the kitchen. Edward threw his scowl over the entire room at all those people who were staring at him. Quickly, they found their breakfasts to be most interesting.

"Idiots," he muttered. Deciding that he did not want to put up with inn food, he walked back to his room to put on his coat.

Fifteen minutes later, Edward was plowing on through the snow. Alphonse trailed behind him, wondering what had gotten his brother all riled up so early in the morning (and how he could plow through the thigh high snow). _Normally, the Colonel is the only one to get him so upset._ He looked at his elder brother, listening to his mutterings about the weather. _Then again, I guess he does not like the cold._

Ten minutes later, a loud but strangely muffled sound reached the ears of the customers in the inn. Oddly enough, the sound almost sounded like footsteps. Very _large _footsteps. As the sound got closer, another sound became audible.

The sound of terrified yelling. Filled with curiosity and braving the cold, a couple of the customers stepped out onto the porch that lead into the inn.

Two terrified men ran past the porch. Looking down the street, the customers saw what the men were running from, a three story tall snowman, complete with coal eyes, mouth, and a carrot nose.

Flabbergasted, the men simply stood on the porch and watched the snowman slowly catch up to the fleeing men.

Quickly following the snowman was the bundled up teenager and Alphonse. Edward was leaping up and down as he ran (he would be too embarrassed to call it a skip, though, that's what it looked like).

"Ha-HA!" he said in an almost maniacal voice. "That'll teach you to make me come up to such a damn cold place for some stupid ruby creating scheme!" A long-suffering Al trailed behind Ed.

Later that day, after handing off the counterfeiters to the local cops (it was the first time they had ever seen a moving snowman before. For that matter, it was the first time anyone in town had seen a moving snowman before, much less, a thirty foot one.), the Elric brothers boarded a train back to headquarters to report in to Colonel Mustang.

Where Alphonse had worn the look of long suffering before, now Mustang did as he read the report that Edward turned in to him. He sighed and shook his head.

With a smug voice he said, "A thirty foot, walking snowman, Fullmetal. I see that you can't keep your...theatrics…down." He leaned back in his chair and placed his fingertips together, "Might you be compensating for something, Fullmetal?"

Red-faced with anger, Edward leapt at Mustang, only to be restrained by Alphonse.

With a final smirk, Mustang held up a photo of Edward all bundled up, "Maybe we should call you the Bundled Alchemist instead?"

Edward lunged out of Alphonse's grasp at Mustang with an inarticulate growl. Alphonse saved Mustang by grabbing one of Edward's legs before he made it over the desk that separated the brothers from Mustang.

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Omake:

Edward looks at author, a deep scowl etched on his face. "'I'm going to get him and his little colonel, too.'? What is this? _The Wizard of Oz_?"

"I suppose it could be. Let's see… There is already Dorothy and Toto, now I just need to figure out who will be the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and the Tin Man."

Growling, Edward says, "That is not very nice to have Al as Toto."

Smiles innocently, "Oh no, Al is Dorothy."

With an eyebrow twitch, Edward replied dangerously, "So, you are calling me a dog?"

Author scoots away, putting furniture between herself and Edward, "Well, you call yourself a dog of the military."

(Insert standard angry Edward reaction.) :-)

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Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Leave a review! (I'm looking for ideas that would make amusing stories.) 


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